Ambitious restaurant operator Ibby Moubadder opened Newtown cafe Cuckoo Callay on a whim just over a decade ago. Now his rapidly expanding hospitality group operates several hatted restaurants and a new rooftop bar.
When Beirut-raised nurse Ibby Moubadder arrived in Australia in 2007, his plan was to become a doctor. This week, the now restaurateur and budding bar tsar adds glam rooftop bar Joji to the rapidly expanding ESCA hospitality group.
“[Nursing and hospitality] are both about looking after people,” he says of his career switch. In 2013, he opened Newtown cafe Cuckoo Callay as a sideline project on a whim and a prayer.
Today ESCA’s seven venues include the hatted restaurants Aalia in Martin Place, and Surry Hills’ Nour, as well as Ito, a Japanese restaurant with an Italian spin, which snared a “wow worthy” 15/20 review in April.
If ESCA isn’t Sydney’s most rapidly expanding hospitality group, then it’s definitely a contender, with Moubadder one of the city’s most ambitious restaurant operators. Over the next six months he’ll add Bondi and Parramatta branches of his Henrietta chicken eatery, and late next year a glitzy new restaurant and bar will land at the Oxford & Foley development in Darlinghurst.
If he’s a little late to Sydney’s rooftop craze, it isn’t through lack of trying. The Joji (Japanese for George) deal has been three years in the making, as plans were lodged to add cover to the fifth-floor rooftop space, which sits above the Cartier flagship store on George Street.
“The first time I stepped foot up here I knew it had to be a bar: music playing, smoke from the robata grill … with the energy of Sydney,” he says.
Moubadder wants to bring a culinary skill set to the standalone bar genre. “We are a food-led group, I believe if we get it right, Joji will be the best bar food in Sydney.”
Group executive chef Paul Farag has been working on lollipop-shaped skewers of wagyu, with another loaded with parson’s noses (the tail end of a chicken). Customers can snack on Joji’s Japanese curry bread or quail and pork jowl tsukune.
Moubadder has snared Kerry Burgess, the former general manager at award-winning London bar Happiness Forgets, to run ESCA’s drinks program. “There’s a lot of technicality in the drinks,” Moubadder explains. Joji’s “bamboo cocktail” includes notes of tequila, tomato and apricot.
“We’re excited to venture into a new space and finally open our first bar,” Moubadder says. “We have put our heart and soul into this venue, so I can’t wait for Sydney to experience what we have created.”
Open Wed-Fri noon-2am; Sat-Tue 4pm-2am
Level 5/388 George Street, Sydney, jojisydney.com
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Scott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.
